7-year-old Guatemalan girl at the border

Stories and News No. 1143

A 7-year-old girl from Guatemala died a few hours after being arrested on the US border.
She was dehydrated and in a state of shock...

Once upon a time there was a border and a girl child.
Read her also as a precious glow traveling to the new world, which is a wonderful planet, cruel, and fascinating, after all.
But it should be cursed, where it proves capable of dividing people on an imaginary line engraved on paper moved by fear of what matters most, for all of us, undeservedly called humans.
Look at her now, then, the young martyr portrayed on a horizon’s portion.
At the same time, watch the sacred edge on the other.
Do you understand what I mean? This is what defines the sense of the common journey, now, at this precise moment.
Among those who, for the survival of their children, throw behind the little that is all.
And who, to defend a tangle of barbed wire and pusillanimity, sacrifice all of that little love for the next one left in the heart.

In fact, there are mothers who renounce to youth and serenity, even just to give one more day to the precious fruit grown in the womb.
And others who think they care about their children, burning the migrant hopes.
There are fathers who would be able to walk the entire universe by feet, in order to find a place capable of welcoming their own living dreams, which they have given great eyes and an uncontrollable desire to open them.
But, at the same time, there are others so short-sighted of empathy and feelings to teach their own blood that the distance between peoples is worth more than the people themselves.
It is the current contradiction.
There are those who give birth to life offering the world.
And there are those who think of saving their future hiding the latter inside their wallet.
There are too many whose survival is daily repelled by the edges of a selfish existence.
And those who, when questioned, declare themselves unaware of the consequences of empty words, such as security and identity, patriot and national pride, purity and yes, borders.
Well, the latter are the favorite children of the so-called strong leader.
Because this is precisely what this guy, and his accomplice society, are doing, without realizing it.
After having baptized a wall with the blood of the poor of this century, nursed it with breasts full of hatred and nourished with obtuse lies and inhuman proclamations, they have entrusted their soldier with a killing task.
So that the frightened man in the shelter of his house ignores such ignoble deeds the ferocious guardian is making at the edge of the village.
Yet, nonetheless, even today, once upon a time a girl child lost on an overestimated line of invisible dust, whose significance depends on already made choices, and the still possible ones of all humanity.
Which is, willy-nilly, in the middle between only seven years of life and all the stories and the days, loves and sorrows, billions of simple moments and an unmissable, small handful of fragments which it is worth to be born for.
Because if our border will be an obstacle or a bridge between the present and the future.
It depends on us all...

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All in one night

All in one night

By

Alessandro Ghebreigziabiher

It is right.
There is something correct in all of this.
I mean, it must go like that, and it must be accepted too.
That's what I tried to explain to my children, when they learned I would have been at work, that night. I'm the last one, and also the youngest.
It’s your turn, they said.
It is, I obeyed.
Because this seems the sense of an already written destiny: you have to welcome and get the best out of what comes.
The kids did not like it and they made me feel it in every possible way.
My wife has given her best to do the opposite, but I already know that she has suffered even more, for a thousand other reasons.
Among them, the fact that we are waiting for a third prince, who is a princess, and we are just a month before the race’s end.
Besides recently we have moved in a new house, everything is unknown, from the neighborhood to the neighbors.
When the world sounds foreign and unusual you need to have the people you care most for on your side.
Nevertheless, I tried to reassure them on my return the next day. We would have been fine as never before, I promised.
Well, is not everyone's desire, inscribed on the common horizon?

So, I went to the police station in the late afternoon and I started my shift.
After enjoying a quick sandwich for dinner, my colleague and I had our first meeting.
One of them.
Brown skin, gray beard, shabby clothes and above all a blank expression, sometimes absent.
The man wandered with two plastic bags full of rags on the middle of the street, the reason for the detention, in addition to the usual absence of a regular identification paper.
The guy, being in a serious state of confusion, is not able to answer the questions, my concise conclusion.
Then, I close the cell.
Who knows where he comes from, asked the colleague, also a novice.
Who he really is, this is the answer we both do not search for.
Because it is not our job, they say.
But, after all, is there a profession that has the task of understanding who we really are?
I did not have time to lose myself in further pindaric flights because the favorite number on the cellphone activated the ringtone.
It was nice to talk with children and wife, but also poignant.
I sensed the tears behind the words, and at the same time I felt mine outcropping from the heart.
Yes, I know, sometimes I feel excessively melancholy.
The truth is that when I was young I wanted to be a romantic poet, but then the crisis, the family layoffs, and here I am following the paternal advice: the uniform can feed you, rhymes not, my dad sentenced one day among the most bitter.
Anyway, later we received our second visit.
A girl from Eastern Europe, I think, found semi fainted on a road usually marked by the presence of prostitutes.
The succinct clothes confirm this hypothesis, I wrote about it on the report. And, as for the previous case, I noted the difficulty in finding information on the identity of the woman, who mumbled nonsensical phrases.
Nevertheless, another cell was closed.
At that moment I took advantage of the colleague’s generosity and the cake prepared by her mother.
It was a minute to midnight, everything was calm while we were enjoying the dessert.
Strange taste, I thought, sweet on the palate and quite the opposite where the aftertaste of living is grasped.
A few seconds into the new day and the buzzer on the phone invited me to read my wife's wishes.
I replied with all the little hearts and smiles I could draw.
At the stroke of midnight we heard the cry.
That is, the third and final meeting of that strange day.
We both ran at the police headquarters entrance and we saw the screaming bundle.
The few months baby, visibly oriental, was wrapped in a cover inside a cardboard box, was the brief description of the scene and the related report.
We immediately brought him in and my colleague, despite having no children, with remarkable skill took him in her arms and began to calm him sitting next to the hot radiator.
This was my work shift, I told the next morning to family and relatives joined for the ritual lunch.
It all happened in one night.
That is, it was the time for everything that happens in each moment, but it escapes us, beyond the confines of the reassuring personal picture.
Like the Christmas night.
It is wrong.
There is something wrong in all this.
I mean, it should not go like that and it should never be accepted without asking questions, avoiding protest or just discussing.
Because it is a special day, this, I tried to explain to my loved ones sitting around the full table just before exchanging gifts.
But I see the beautiful crib that we have placed next to the tree, the cave, Mary, Joseph and the Baby, and the more I think of those three wretched lives on the just passed night.
There is something right in celebrating the blessed events, we must be happy with what we have when we have it, because it is not always like this, I have no doubts about that.
But there is also something terribly wrong, underneath.
Maybe, when the parties will be over, we all should do something about it...

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Trump vs immigrants: the movie

Stories and News No. 1142

Once upon a time a movie’s writing process.
Imagine the scene like a film too.
As if we were properly all in a movie.
The room is the classic one of a film producer, with the desk covered with paperwork, the posters on the walls and some prizes on the shelf.
Nothing too elegant and glittering, we are not talking about an announced box office breach.
But not even a more or less witty B-movie, despite the scarce money.
Imagine a medium-quality work, which should be good for the average people, in order to give them what they want and need.
Well, this is the trailer’s message for the kind of movie where promotion is everything.
Nonetheless, the writer is trying to convince the money lender about the script.
For the record, we are half of the latter.
Oops, I forgot the title: Migrants.

"So let's recap," says the producer, "the protagonist finally managed to get elected as government leaders, right?"
"Right."
"How does the plot goes on, then?"
"You know… that's the problem. The first part was easy."
"Do you mean the one about the electoral campaign?"
"Yeah, I wrote it without thinking."
"I saw."
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing, let's move on."
"Easy to say..."
The man who pays the bills, which moreover has much more experience than the other, moves the bust forward and he is about to speak with a paternalistic tone.
"Listen, let’s be clear about that: what is the program’s essence that allowed the guy to grab the decisive votes?"
The writer thinks about it for a brief moment, but nothing more, because the query is really trivial.
"Voting him people would have elected the normal citizen instead of the usual politicians and would have kick the illegal immigrants off."
"So, is really this what happened?"
"In the movie, do you mean?"
"Of course, but let’s be honest, at least among us."
"The truth is that the man is anything but an ordinary citizen, he’s a rich and powerful guy. Indeed, regarding the immigrants, it is well explained in the movie that he succeeds in convincing the voters thanks to a capillary media system, especially social networks, which spreads endlessly tons of lies and manipulations about immigration. "
"That's right. And what does all this bring us? "
"He won thanks to lies?"
"It seems obvious to me, isn’t it? You wrote the movie, am I wrong?"
"No, you're not."
"Well, you’re not the first writer that I had to educate, believe me. On the other hand, I always had the last word and do you know what it is?"
"No, but I am convinced you’re about to tell me."
"My signature on the check, young blood."
"I see."
"So, speaking of the movie, the creative stalemate doesn’t concern if he is or not a common citizen, one of the people, one of them, because they still believe that, even because he often makes clamorous gaffes and says embarrassing things, and everyone feels reassured."
"It's true!"
"Of course it is. The real problem is about the immigration."
"Why?"
"Simple. Because that's the bigger lie."
"I see..."
"On the other hand, the introductory part of your movie is clear. The country which the guy lives in has enormous and unresolved issues such as the bad infrastructures from east to west that put the population at risk everyday, corruption at every level, an unacceptable number of homeless, to name a few. All of that and much more, before talking about the alleged problem of illegal immigrants, who are of a modest number before other nations of comparable value. "
"He's right, there are no illegal immigrants..."
"There are, but they are not as many as was lied. Now, if the movie will be a successful one, as I hope, we have to draw a final that prepares the sequel."
"You mean..."
"Yes, I mean the next election. People cannot see that illegal immigrants are much less. Finally, even the opposition could realize it..."
"I found!"
"Good, tell me, I'm curious."
"Well, in order to get elected the man who aspired to lead the country exaggerated the real amount of illegal citizens. Once elected – having the power, he must do nothing but create illegal immigrants where there are not."
"How could he do it?"
"Easy as it is logical: implementing a repressive treatment of the migratory phenomenon, approving laws that seriously undermine the human rights of asylum seekers and migrants with the effect of increasing the number of people in a state of irregularity."
"Great! Is it a your idea?"
"No, I was inspired by reality..."


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You are different

You are different

By

Alessandro Ghebreigziabiher

Yes, I know.
She has it all, my daughter.
We spared nothing, my husband and I, and no one ever dared to speculate who resembled more, as they say to couples with young children.
From exotic origins to different abilities – if we want to call them with affection and respect.
From the original brain to an equally unusual way of perceiving and expressing emotions and feelings.
From everything that can be called defect, impairment, disturbance or not, but it is noticed.
Well, you cannot avoid to notice my Liza.
I was expecting it, yesterday's scene, when we came back from school.
I knew it would happen sooner or later.
"Mom, I have to tell you something really important,", she told me once at home.
Well, when a nine-year-old girl tells you that it's really important, you have to believe it.
So, we went to her office, better known as her bedroom.
"Tell me everything," I told her when we settled on the bed.
"Mom," she confided to me, lowering her voice and her head too. "Today a kid told me that I'm too different and that this is not good."
Sensing the suffering in the tone of her voice, as well as in the posture, I tried to contain the irritation towards all the idiot kids of this world.

"Is it true, mommy, that I am too much different and that this is not good?"
You know? I could not resist. Once in a while the truth must be said to our children.
"Too much, I don’t know, but I'll tell you something. You are different like Superman and Thor."
"Why?"
Then, the maternal lesson / heartfelt monologue / inspired declamation all in one breath started.
"Because Superman and Thor are not only unique and different from all human beings, but they are also two immigrants, if we want to say it all. They migrated from another planet passing the atmosphere wall, okay? Spider-man? Do we want to talk about spider man? Let's do it, because he's a different man, he's not a human and he's not a spider, but both of them, so mixed-blood, right? But he's not alone, you know? Wolverine and all X-Men are mutants, or different people, clear? They’re different and often discriminated for what they are: special, extraordinary, w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l creatures. However, there are not just superheroes, you see? Even cartoons, comics and also fairy tales are full of exceptional characters that were not accepted at first as they deserved: Dumbo and its fantastic wings exchanged for ears, Alice and her uncontrollable imagination, Peter Pan himself and all the lost boys, the poor, mistreated and humiliated Cinderella. Some who have been forced to live away from civilization to succeed, such as Robin Hood and Mowgli, and others who had to work hard to figure out who they really are, as Pinocchio and Simba in the Lion King. What about literature and cinema? Do you think they don’t prove that? You're wrong, because despite being as short as a dwarf and having two giant feet, Frodo is the bravest of the company. Don Quixote, though a bit 'crazy, is an example for purity of mind and intent. The creature of Frankenstein would risk ending up in some specially created reality show, like the Island of Monsters. Instead it should be considered the best proof that what man creates may be more human than man himself. What about D'Artagnan? The only one who has no title, birth and possibility to be a musketeer, has become the best in France. And despite living alone on top of Notre-Dame, Quasimodo is the first one I would like to walk through the streets of Paris with, maybe accompanied by the verses of Cyrano of Bergerac. But let's not forget Harry Potter, mistreated and forced to live on an under stairs by his uncles since he was considered abnormal. Because magic is just another kind of diversity. It’s what makes Godzilla special, which is not a dragon or a dinosaur, but is the largest and most powerful because it has the best of both. This is why King Kong is the leader of its island and humans do everything to obscure its light, mad for envy and fear. Luke Skywalker teaches us that when you can figure out who you are and learn how to use your gifts you are the hero everyone wants to be, because the force flows vigorously in you as in him. You have a treasure inside, which is called fantasy and all the pirates of the world, especially those who are forced to run away like Jack Sparrow would agree with me."
Well, only at that moment I realized that Elisa had fallen asleep.
I put a cover on her and moving my lips to her ear I whispered: “Dream, honey, dream of the characters I told you about and with them the life that awaits you. Because you are different and, thanks to that, one day you will be happy and admired like all of them.”

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What is opposition

Stories and News No. 1141


Once upon a time the opposition.
Which is a feminine noun and, perhaps, it is much more.
Nonetheless, let’s focus our attention solely on what the dictionary says, as if the latter were a strange kind of storyteller.
In its particularly case, it is fond of words, rather than stories.
Yet it often happens that some words are so important, so essential, to possess meanings that are real stories.
With an incipit, a plot and a more or less reassuring moral.
Well, enough with lingers, let's begin to narrate.
Opposition means to oppose.
In other words, to be opposite.
In some cases, even the argument which we oppose someone or something with.
However, we are still too vague on the specific target of this mine.
So, let's frame it more clearly.
Opposition is also the legally enforcement action taken by the parties opposed to the politics of the majority.
Consequently, it is also the group of parliamentarians belonging to these parties and all those who are their members.
If all this were not enough, opposition is also the contradiction to one idea with another, the antagonism to a theory with one's own.
Where we want to emphasize everything with a purely philosophical meaning, opposition is the relationship between two denying concepts, which are mutually exclusive.
When we wish to obtain the approval of structural linguistics, we might add that opposition is the relationship between elements that could occupy the same place in a statement.
However, if this happened, they would produce different meanings.
Antithetical.
In short, opposites.

Nevertheless, when we speak of storytelling, the sacred rules demand the inevitable conflict to be faced.
The hostile obstacle.
Without the latter’s overcoming the plot is stalled and every character, from the most important to the most expendable one too.
Sometimes it happens in the most complicated stories that it might be very difficult to identify.
Nevertheless, it is not our case.
Our country leaders, too many during these hard times, are individuals who do not have any consideration of human dignity, any care about the peaceful coexistence between the various components of society, no respect for different cultures and traditions, no strategy for climate change caused by humanity.
The people who have been entrusted with our destiny are busily trying to turn the world back on its darkest days, ignoring and obscuring every progress made to protect global peace, even before national.
Like other bad leaders already seen and suffered, as long as they will have power in their hands, they will use it to divide the poor among themselves, unleashing armies of people against people, selling weapons and lies.
It is said that for the person endowed with worthy rectitude, the real difficulty does not consist in understanding what is the right choice to do, but not to do it once understood.
Well, before the aforementioned scenario, for those who simply declare to care about two precious riches – that is the whole earth and human race, without any distinction, being, making and shouting opposition against their governments should be the easiest thing in the world...

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Universal Declaration of Human Rights 70 Years Video

The 10th of December 2018 we will celebrate the 70th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Storytellers for Peace, an international network born in 2016, formed by storytellers who tell stories through clips, made a special one for this great occasion.
The artists, as much the tales, come from all over the world and speak about justice, equality, human rights and peace.
The project was created and is coordinated by Alessandro Ghebreigziabiher, author, playwright, storyteller and stage actor from Italy.
Human rights regard all of us, not only artists or activists.
That’s why, Storytellers for Peace have involved in their new video also colleagues, relatives, friends, or anyone else who wanted to join the work.
Because, more than ever today, we have to say that this wonderful Declaration is still the best words we have.
The 30 articles are told in their respective first language from 31 artists, educators, teachers, journalists, or just persons who care about human rights from all over the world (the video is subtitled in English):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MfKP9S_Frs

The cast in order of appearance:
Barry Stewart Mann, storyteller (USA)
Sheri Mann Stewart, film artist (USA)
Tendal Mann, student (USA)
Royce Mann, student (USA)
Rolene Jaffe, educator (USA)
Daniela Sgherri, teacher (Italy)
Oriana Fiumicino, playwright (Italy)
Roberto Pentassuglia, musician (Italy)
D.M.S. Ariyrathne, storyteller (Sinhala, Sri Lanka)
Vaseekaran Robinshan, actor (Tamil, Sri Lanka)
Julika Jutharasa, volunteer (Tamil, Sri Lanka)
Monica Rossi, lawyer (Italy)
Cecilia Moreschi, drama therapist (Italy)
Roberta Cernicchiaro, speech therapist (Italy)
Katharina Ritter, storyteller (Germany)
Mahfuz Jewel, storyteller (Bangladesh)
Michael JMBM, actor (Bangladesh)
Roksana Amin, journalist (Bangladesh)
Alessandro Ghebreigziabiher, storyteller (Italy)
Massimo Massimiliani, concierge (Italy)
Ilaria Colonna, educator (Italy)
Francesca Cristini, psychologist (Italy)
Monica Leone, educator (Italy)
Marco Marini, educator (Italy)
Luca Salvio, educator (Italy)
Lisi Amondarain, storyteller (Argentine)
Ruta Tekie, presenter (Eritrea)
Abraham Tewelde Gebremariam, teacher (Eritrea)
Hamid Barole Abdu, writer (Eritrea)
John Sandow, production manager (Australia)
Suzanne Sandow (Australia)

Letter to children about borders and walls against immigrants

Stories and News No. 1140

To you.
To you, who are out there, or even here, next to me.
Above all to you, while you are still living the age of justified fragility and candor nurtured by heart.
Nonetheless, to all of you who have somehow been lucky enough to keep all that, regardless of the illusion called flowing time.
Forgive us.
Really, forgive us all.
We, the adults.
We, the older ones.
We, and among us, more than ever those who often make choices for themselves, stating them as popular desire.
We apologize if we have grown up and aged by cultivating fear more than anything else.
We are afraid, yes.
We are incalculably afraid of everything.
Even of you, especially you.

We are afraid, that is, often the certainty, that you were much more courageous than us, rather than hope, as it would be our moral and generational obligation.
We are afraid of what we see as different, when instead your eyes have already cataloged as human.
We are much afraid of what we ignore, that so far your curiosity has not only discovered, but even learned to love.
We also have got a boundless fear of what comes from afar, which on the contrary has been close to you since the first meeting.
Because the future, where it was painted by an innocent look’s imagination, travels at the light’s speed: the distances are contracted and the time expands.
Too bad we have forgotten how such extraordinary magic works, since it is still today the most realistic of the possible fantasies.
Perhaps we should have been more careful, at school, as we demand it from you now.
Or, maybe, it would have been useful to review the essential lessons in the followed years, instead of hiding more and more under our cowardice.
The fact is that we are incredibly confusing creatures, here it is the biggest defect of the generation that should give you the pace for the awaiting horizon.
This confusion prevented us from understanding the most important thing.
That fear is not just a word, it is much more.
It is an emotion.
That's why we cannot wipe it out with the eraser or the DEL key on the keyboard.
Surely we cannot think of seeing it disappearing with other words, however screamed and sold to the highest bidder.
Such as borders or walls.
It does not matter how vast is the set of discourses and reasoning, rules and proclamations.
The fear will remain.
On the contrary, the next day it will show itself in the chest with even worse vehemence.
Be indulgent, then, but not too much, when you will fully understand what mistakes we are making, when we have the responsibility to show you the right way.
For this you will have to find the latter alone, ignoring our example, such as our advice.
Because you have learned to know fear too, fortunately for you not as much as we do.
But you still have the courage to live it, learning from it.
Protect that wonderful gift from us.
In the same way that we have educated you to be afraid of us, you have to learn from our faults.
Because in the last century there has already been a world built on terror.
Hurry up and replace us, and pick up where we saved it from.
With the promise we betrayed.
Never again we will live in fear.
Never again.

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In your image

In your image

By

Alessandro Ghebreigziabiher

"Good morning, I'm Tom, how can I help you?"
"Hi, yes, I have got a problem with the profile picture."
"I see. Account holder?"
"Avatar."
"Not the nickname, I mean the real name."
"Well, yes, it's Avatar."
"Are you making fun of me?"
"What do you mean? I’m not having fun at all."
Click.
"Hi, I'm John, how can I help you?"
"Good morning to you, yes, look, I've called before too, there's something wrong with my profile picture."
...
"John? Are you still there?"
"The name, sir, I need your real name."
"Avatar."
"The real one, sir, I have no time to waste."
"Why? Are you dying?"
Click.
"Hi, I'm Fred, how can I help you?"
"Hi, yes. Listen, Fred, I have got a faulty profile picture."
...
"Fred?"
"I'm here, I don’t go anywhere. To solve the problem I need the name, sir, the real one, I’ve already told you."
"When? You’re the first Fred I talk to."
"But it's always me, come on, I change my name every time for the privacy..."
"Really? If you change it every time, why are you so insistent with my name?"
"Are you kidding me?"
"Sir... I can’t. That's impossible."
"Are you serious?"
"Of course, yes, always."
"And you didn’t really understand that it was always me on the phone?"
"No, how could I?"

"The voice, man, it was ever the same."
"Well, yes, this is the problem, the lack of imagination, immobility, boredom, always remaining still, motionless."
"There’s a lot of problems, dude, not one."
"Indeed."
"And your name is Avatar."
"It's what I am."
"What does it mean?"
"It means I am an Avatar."
"Look, just because it's a dull day and I have not received another call in addition to yours in the last six hours, I want to play your game."
"What game?"
"Nothing, let's get to the point. If you are an Avatar, you can’t have problems with your profile picture, do you understand?"
"Why?"
"Because you’re the image of someone else’s profile."
"Who?"
"The account holder."
"Exactly, yes, he's the problem, then."
"And what would it be?"
"See, Fred..."
"I'm Paul."
"Well, another one, yes. Good morning, Paul, I have got some trouble with the profile picture..."
"Avatar?! It's always me and I'm telling you my real name..."
"Oops."
"You were talking about the problem with the account holder..."
"Yes, Paul, the fact is that since we’re together, he has been constantly changing me, the look and the dress, the face’s expression and the light, the background and the posture in the portrait."
"What’s the problem?"
"The problem is that in the meantime, despite the signs of age, he has always remained the same, without taking a step towards the ideal horizon we are not even allowed to dream of."
I was convinced it was him, the one who’s alive...

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Looking for life

Stories and News No. 1139

Forgive us.
Really, forgive us all.
It was not our intention to encroach on your time.
Invading your horizon.
Becoming a story in yours without warning, writing unexpected pages in the human tale.
The fact is that we are born by chance somewhere and often we die in the wrong place for the most different reasons.
Because of illness, many experts support that.
Whether it might come from the body itself or the mind, it will be explained with a minimum of foundation only by the most shrewd explorers of unfortunate creatures.
A rather greedy epidemic, in the case that concerns us personally, since more than one hundred forty of us have traveled the last mile of the different journey, finding the same end.

140 death stranding whales on New Zealand

However, is there someone who needs the truth behind so badly?
Important question, as well as what lies under the meaning of this story.
Some hypothesize instead that the cause was only a fatal navigation error.
“Only”, right?
That is precisely how the fate of too many of us is decided.
In fact, for a cruel “only”, most of what is alive on earth is at risk today.
Because “only” a small, overvalued minority of humans is unwittingly anticipating the common curtain’s closure.
Nevertheless, if the evidence of this motivation will be proved, will it be fruitful for somebody?
A fundamental question, in every story, let alone what sees all as protagonists.
In any case, others suggest an excessively drastic falling tide.
If so, it would be sad to know that it was water that betrayed us.
She was both mother and home, nurture and love, guide and supportive companion.
In short, the sea.
In other words, what the earth is, or should be, for you.
In spite of that, when this explanation was credited as the most reasonable, would it be of interest to those who look at our inert life and listen to the echo of our sorrowful, last song?
It is a doubt of considerable consistency, and this writing is a witness to that, we wish it with all the heart we no longer have.
On the other hand, some consider the escape from a voracious predator as a plausible reason for our overcoming of the natural fourth wall that divides us.
Well, I can exclude this possibility without fear of contradiction, because there is no hunter in the world capable of scaring more than a hundred of us.
Unless he is the living threat on the surface. Well, those are a kind of particularly narcissistic monsters, who, if they pursue you, would do anything to take your life off with their own hands.
We would then have their fingerprints impressed upon us as overwhelming evidence.
In any case, even if this were the truth – and it is not, what will it mean to those who remain?
A precious question, verified by the following words.
Finally, there are some who attribute our blatant stage’s exit as the umpteenth symptom of a crazy climate.
Behold, this is the motive that none of us is able to understand.
The madness of the wind, the senseless cold and the delirious rain are alien bogeys to us.
At birth we entrust everything to a supreme order that does not demand to be worshiped and even less prayed. But it requires absolute and blind trust, and faith is everything to us.
However, if this were the answer, is there anyone among you out there who is actually wanting it?
It is a question that is anything but trivial, in our humble opinion.
For you, not us.
Because if you cannot understand why someone decides to leave his or her world to find death on your shores, you will never be able to comprehend the same person who knocks on your doors.
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Silvia Romano abduction on the news

Stories and News No. 1138

Let's also write this as a story.
Because, in my humble opinion, this is yet another metaphor of the time we are living.
Once upon a time Silvia Romano and Massimo Gramellini, a famous journalist of one of the most important Italian newspaper. Take him for instance, just for that.
I do not know the first one and I learned of her only after the tragic news about her abduction.
Well, this should be the due incipit for the vast majority of people, when we are dealing about persons we never met, even if they are on the great media’s spot.
I do not know the person and I learned of her only after the news, I repeat.
Of course, among those who want to express an opinion, if they need to.
What we know for sure is very little: we know that the kidnapping took place in Chakama, in southern Kenya. The girl was there as a volunteer of Africa Milele, an Italian non-profit organization, and she has long been involved in projects in the area.
There is still no reliable information on the reasons for the seizure.

So, officially, there is not even a demand for a ransom.
At the same time,  we ignore a multitude of things.
We have no idea why she chose to volunteer in Africa.
We do not know what her personal motivations are.
We do not know her ideals.
We can not pretend to understand, just by reading four lines on the internet, why a young girl leaves her country to work in so different a place from where she grew up, putting herself at risk and the privileges due to her homeland.
We do not know if she ever doubted the choice she made.
In such a case, we ignore what has convinced her even more to live up to her difficult decision.
We do not know what she hopes to accomplish with her work.
We do not know her short, medium and long-term goals.
We are not able to see, from so far and with so little knowledge of the person, what she actually wrote on her horizon.
Furthermore, we do not know what she is feeling at the moment.
What's going through her head.
Ultimately, it really hurts to say, we do not know if she is still alive or not.
And yet, all this does not prevent Massimo Gramellini and many others from filling their pages with opinions about Silvia Romano’s life.
I do not know the journalist, as I ignore the man, that is my equally dutiful premise.
However, on his first article he declares to agree with those who argue that the young girl kidnapped in Kenya by a band of Somalis could have met her despair of altruism in Italy, instead of going to risk life in a lost village in the heart of the forest, and that her reckless choice risks costing the Italian taxpayers a substantial ransom.
Immediately after he states that he can not accept the ferocious attacks to someone – like her – now in the bandits' hands.
Well, I think this represents perfectly the modern way of communicating, which has also led to populist governments in Italy and many other countries.
Moreover, the next day, Massimo Gramellini decided to rewrite his concept, but the message is the same: he agrees with the people who comment facts, knowing almost nothing of what they are talking about, because it is exactly what he did with Silvia Romano’s life.
Not in the premise, but in what he adds later.
He wrote about Romano describing her as a naive, a bit crazy, girl who wants to embrace the world with the illusion of being able to change it.
The truths is that none of us can tell that.
At the same time, I have the absolute confidence that at this precise moment an incalculable and invisible number of young girls and boys are really changing the world out there, showing remarkable wisdom and clearness of mind.
The deluded ones are those who believe they have already understood everything about their own life and others.
Well, here is the metaphor I was talking about.
On one hand, we have the people who vomit every day on the white paper or screen everything passes through their head, about everything and everyone, forgetting the value of silence and the understanding of things, sharing lots of speeches that contradict themselves. But in the meantime, please, give us a click for the ads.
On the other hand, fortunately for us, we have Silvia Romano.
May heaven, or who else, help her to return safe to her dreams and her projects, as well as her loved ones.
Because we all desperately need people like her.

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Deportation story

Deportation story

By

Alessandro Ghebreigziabiher

A nightmare.
This is a nightmare, but I am awake.
It would be wonderful if I was still asleep; I would give anything to find myself in one of those stories, where I can open my eyes and everything comes back as before.
I still see the scene again as if it were now, again, and again.
I am at home, quiet, confident that the door and the walls will protect me.
Because there is danger out there, this is what they taught me, and that's what I share every day with my peers.
Evil lurks in the folds of what I ignore and that is different from me, this is the only news to be spread in every corner of the brain as in every plot of the heart.

Suddenly I hear screams beyond the door, they call my name without mentioning it, but I know it's me, I know it's me who their talking about, who they are looking for.
Not the third, nor even the second, but the door yields to the first blow, showing me instantly how foolish I was to fell safe.
In a few fractions of a second they are around me.
The guardians of the sacred, impassable border, stare at me grimly, when in a single chorus they exclaim the most severe sentence: "You are expelled."
"How could it be possible?" I say. "There must be a mistake..."
Then I go on like this, as if talking to myself, declaiming the faithful manual aloud, in a vain attempt to remember the order of things, mine.
I am a citizen with all the right papers.
I was born in this country from parents born in this country.
Whose ancestors have their roots firmly planted on this land.
I speak their language.
I follow their traditions.
Their belief is mine.
My culture is pure and uncontaminated.
It is identical to what was entrusted to me at my birth.
I am a patriot.
My life demonstrates that.
Every day I stand as a tireless bulwark to defend the local product and the value handed down.
"You are expelled," my unexpected jailers repeat.
"But this is a misunderstanding," I reply with renewed vigor.
And then I go on again heartfelt, relying on the script which I used to build the imaginary character called national identity.
My skin color is the right one.
My eyes are recognizable.
My features are popular.
As well as those of the people I have chosen as friends.
Those I have reserved my predilection for.
I have never betrayed my race.
My blood.
My hopes.
My needs.
My time.
My conscience.
All this, and also the rest that composes what I am, I have never mixed it with them, the others.
In spite of that, as if my words were insignificant dust particles lost in the wind, the faceless agents from the unmistakable uniform take me by the arms and lead me to the edge of the world.
I am still there, beyond the invisible barriers that I first raised, to reflect on the reasons for my exile, which as an endless echo have condemned me.
You are expelled because to defend what you say you are.
You are no longer part of the so-called human genre...